White Sox garner five GIBBY nominations

White Sox garner five GIBBY nominations

CHICAGO -- One of the top stories from a highly successful 2012 White Sox season was Chris Sale.

The left-handed hurler, making his first foray into the starting rotation at 23 years old, proved to be one of the best starting pitchers in the American League. Sale finished with a 17-8 record and 3.05 ERA in 29 starts and 30 games, looking effortlessly like an ace hurler among a talented White Sox staff. He struck out 192 over 192 innings, allowing just 167 hits, and limiting the opposition to a .235 average.

Sale's mound work also earned him two of the team's five nominations for the 2012 GIBBY Awards. Sale joins Justin Verlander, David Price, Jered Weaver, Felix Hernandez, Gio Gonzalez, Stephen Strasburg, Kris Medlen, Cole Hamels, R.A. Dickey, Johnny Cueto, Kyle Lohse, Matt Cain and Clayton Kershaw in the Top Starting Pitcher category. He also is one of the candidates for Breakout Pitcher, joining the likes of Jim Johnson, Tom Wilhelmsen, Aroldis Chapman, Medlen and Dickey.

Major League Baseball's A-listers will take home 2012 GIBBYs trophies -- the ultimate honors of the sport's awards season -- based on votes by media, front-office personnel, MLB alumni, fans at MLB.com and the Society for American Baseball Research.

GIBBY trophies also will be awarded for the year's top play, storyline, hitting performance, pitching performance, oddity, walk-off, Cut4 topic and postseason moment, from MLB.com's Must C highlight reels.

In the past four years, fans have cast more than 40 million votes across the various GIBBYs categories, none of which were restricted to individual League affiliation.

You can vote as many times as you want until fan balloting closes Sunday, Dec. 2, at 10:59 p.m. CT.

Winners will be presented their GIBBY trophies at the MLB.com Greatness in Baseball Yearly Awards extravaganza during the Winter Meetings in Nashville, Tenn., on Tuesday, Dec. 4.

Adam Dunn already has won Comeback Player of the Year Awards from The Sporting News and Players Choice, as voted on by his peers, and will have a chance to win in the GIBBYs as one of the Comeback nominees. He is joined by Tampa Bay closer Fernando Rodney, who won the Major League Baseball AL Comeback honor, and Buster Posey, who captured MLB's National League Comeback award.

Philip Humber's perfect game, a masterpiece thrown against the Mariners on April 21 at Safeco Field, is one of the nominees in Pitching Performance. Alex Rios' theft job of a Corey Hart homer on June 24 against the Brewers at U.S. Cellular Field has been recognized in the Top Play group, with one nomination per team.

Scott Merkin is a reporter for MLB.com. Read his blog, Merk's Works, and follow him on Twitter @scottmerkin. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.